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Exalted Order
The Exalted Order, or Exalted, is one of the four playable races in Night of Oblivion. Storyline: The Exalted Order is a group of High Elves and Blood Elves under the command of Kael'thas, the leader of Quel'thalas. The Exalted arose as a result of their disagreement with the Night Elves to practice Forest Form, an ancient magic which eliminates all foreign magic sources in the user's body. The Exalted take great pride in their magics, but when the Oblivion Cannon hit Quel'thalas, the faction lost almost all its strength in a matter of seconds, including but not limited to the death of Kael'thas. The Exalted were the first faction to discover the Core. Town Hall: Observatory. Arcane Spire, Violet Citadel Core Structure: Mystic Core Basic Worker: High Elf Laborer Farm: Pylon Detectors: Town Halls and Azure Lanterns (after upgrade), as well as Aeon Skywagon Production Facilities: 4 Structures # Exalted Barracks (Tier 1): Produces basic units. # Arcane Sanctum (Tier 2): Produces spellcasters. # Exalted Factory (Tier 2): Produces mechanical units. # Exalted Waygate (Tier 2): Produces air units. Tier 3 Units: * Phoenix: Ultimate unit with high durabilty and a splash attack. * Aeon Skywagon: Durable transport unit which can heal allies. * Elder Swordsman: Upgraded form of Swordsman with better overall stats. * Glaive Thrower: Powerful damage unit with a spill attack * Hyperion Cannon: Powerful damage unit with a splash attack. Race Asymmetry: # An Exalted feature is that all its units have 0 armour, but instead have mana shields to compensate. The only exceptions are workers and spellcasters. Buildings have Hero armour instead of Fortified armour. # Exalted units feature a weak early game, but stronger units at higher techs, owing to both the units themselves as well as stronger upgrade spikes. # The Exalted has 1 more production facility than the standard 3, thus discouraging mass tech switches. # Exalted units have a focus on harassment, splash damage and utility. Race Asymmetry Analysis & Strategy: # Having units which rely on mana shields instead of armour has several implications. The obvious weakness is that Manabreak will be highly effective. The counter argument is that mana shields help override armour weaknesses. The most obvious case is for buildings, where the huge mana shields provide a strong defense against +Armoured attacks. # Leading from the first point, it is important to note that armour upgrades fall off slightly at +2 and +3, but this is not the case for mana shields which arguably scale up since mana shields also protect the unit against spell damage which is more prevalent in the mid to late game. A weak early game, coupled with the fact that the research facility is a requirement for static defense, encourages tech openings. # While mass tech switches are rare, complementary tech additions are not uncommon, the obvious exmaple being the Aeon Skywagon, which is a great addition to any composition. It can even be said that the Skywagon benefits a ground army more than an air army. # A harass centric playstyle helps deter enemies from moving out and keeping them on their side of the map, creating space for the Exalted to tech up safely into a late game deathball composition, which the Exalted excels due to the prevalence of splash damage sources. The utility of the various units helps countermeasure any scenario thrown at the Exalted. Common Builds and Composition: * Exalted can use the Standard Opening of Farm - Production Facility - Expansion - Core Activation whilst producing workers the whole time, albeit with a slight variation since the Observatory's 14 food supply allows the Barracks to be placed first. * Swordsmen and Archers form a safe opening composition to work with, as they are cheap and cover each other relatively well. Elder Swordsmen in particular scale very well into the late game as a meat shield and mineral dump. * Creating a wall-off is important as Exalted units are rather expensive in the early game, and it may be difficult to produce more than one in the event of an early attack. * In addition, an early Arcane Vault can be useful for several reasons. Firstly it is likely to create an upgrade lead which can lead to strong timing attacks in the mid game. Secondly, it is a viable building to use in wall-offs. Thirdly, it enables the construction of Static Defense, in particular the Earth-Fury Tower, which, when paired with a wall-off, is extremely strong at holding early pushes. * The choice of tech after Arcane Fountain will affect the style of play. A Waygate allows for map control, a Factory allows for punishing a greedy expand, while an Arcane Sanctum is a safe option which can still diversify into training Priests or Sorceresses, which are defensive and offensive options respectively. * The Exalted will want to look to harass around the early to mid game, via Emissaries, Sorceresses and/or Arcane Zeppelins, depending on the composition and situation. * In the mid to late game, choosing a source of splash is important, as the splash sources operate differently. For example, if the enemy composition has a lot of defended marksmen then Glaive Throwers outclasses Divine Shock in that it ignores meat shields and greatly outranges the latter. * Phoenixes should be massed in the late game whenever the chance arises as they are extremely tanky and food efficient. * As mentioned above, the Arcane Vault (research facility) is a focal point for the Exalted at all times. Containing 10 upgrades with 3 levels each (except spellcaster upgrades in which there are 2), the Arcane Vault holds 28 upgrades. While unnecessary to research all the upgrades, the sheer amount of stats the Exalted gains over time cannot be underestimated, and coupled with multiple splash damage sources, the late game is where the Exalted is at home. As a result, the opponent should be pressured into ending the game, and the Exalted should play around that mentality. Misc. Statistics and Trivia: * The Exalted race, if it wasn't obvious enough already, drew strong influences from the Protoss race in StarCraft. * Grand Magus's Nullification is the only ability in the game which enables its user to one-shot an enemy (summoned unit). * Archer's Pinpoint Accuracy, a Tier 1 upgrade, is in terms of cost strictly better than the Tier 3 range upgrades Nether Reach and Aerial Snipe. * Swordsman's Enhanced Swordsmanship is the only unit replacing upgrade in the game. * Exalted is the only race with upgradeable Static Defense and Farms. In addition, the Fuchsia Dynamo is the only tech structure which when unupgraded doesn't unlock any tech. * Exalted features the 2 only mana restore abilities as well as the only race with evasion.